


The Best Defense

by Evening_Bat



Category: Daredevil (TV), Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-07 21:27:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4278525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evening_Bat/pseuds/Evening_Bat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daredevil would be <i>amazing</i> in a Jaeger.  If they could just find someone to be his co-pilot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Defense

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt over on the Daredevil kinkmeme. (I've generally got Pacific Rim AU headcanons to spare, so it seemed like a good idea?)

“Okay, so for anyone that thought space aliens dropping out of the sky weren’t exciting enough? Now we have giant sea monsters crawling out of the Pacific. Ain’t the universe grand?” Tony saluted the footage of smoking destruction playing across the screen with his mug, then downed its contents.

“I thought the aliens were plenty exciting,” Steve offered, hands wrapped around a mug of his own. “But now that we have sea monsters, we need to put together some kind of plan in case this happens again.”

They’d been caught completely off-guard when the 7.1 earthquake that rocked the west coast turned out to be just the prelude to a 300-foot-tall, blade-crested lizard emerging from the ocean and tearing San Francisco apart. It had taken four days, everything the military could muster, every Chitauri weapon SHIELD had learned how to fire, and _nuclear weapons_ to bring the monster down. After a rampage that cost tens of thousands of lives and more property damage than could be easily calculated.

“What are the odds of it happening again?” Natasha’s voice and hands were as steady as ever, but she had a white-knuckled grip on her tablet.

Bruce shrugged, lifting a hand to rub at reddened, tired eyes. “No way to tell. None of our scans are picking up anything strange, but no one saw this coming either.”

“I don’t know about you guys,” Clint said without looking up from the knife he’d been sharpening since they’d fallen into their seats around the conference table, “but I gave up on hoping for the best a _long_ time ago.”

***

It happened again. Six months later, in Manila. The new monster didn’t survive as long as the first had, but only because nuclear strikes were no longer the option of last resort.

***

Almost four months later found them picking up the pieces after a third attack at Cabo. SHIELD had finally had some luck with the repurposed Chitauri weapons they’d been hastily reconfiguring, but not enough. In the end, they’d had to wipe another city off the map.

“Weapons aren’t the problem,” an exhausted, grease-stained Tony told Steve when he swung by the labs for an update. “We’ve _got_ weapons.”

“Well, what we’ve got isn’t doing us much good,” Steve said, pointing at the damage reports scrolling along the edge of Tony’s display.

“We don’t need better wea-” Tony froze mid-word, eyes going wide as a manic grin spread across his face. “We need better _weapons platforms_.”

***

“Trust the mad scientist in the powered armour to come up with a plan to fight giant monsters by building giant robots,” seemed to be general sentiment in response to Tony’s flash of inspiration.

The sarcasm quickly dried up when his insane plan actually _worked_.

***

The Avengers spent most of their time out on the west coast these days, but they kept up with events back in New York. Steve had been following the latest news about the city’s newest vigilante with interest when Tony wandered into the room and stuck around to watch the grainy video footage of Daredevil flattening a squad of mob enforcers.

“Damn, he’s good. I’d love to get him into a Jaeger cockpit,” Tony sighed as the last of the bodies hit the ground.

“He’d be an asset,” Steve agreed, “and we can always use another pilot. But he’s not really the type that plays well with others.”

“That’s an understatement. Murdock’s a standoffish bastard.” Tony’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Then again...didn’t you work with him last time we were in New York?”

Steve nodded absently. “Helped him break up a drug trafficking ring.”

“Did you happen to get his number after you got his name?”

***

To no one’s surprise, Daredevil wanted nothing to do with the Jaeger program. He did them the courtesy of not vanishing immediately after his initial refusal, but nothing they said could convince him to cooperate.

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do out there,” he said, shaking his head slowly, “but even if I were willing to leave Hell’s Kitchen, you won’t find anyone whose headspace I could share to help you.”

“Come to the Tower tomorrow and prove it,” Iron Man challenged. “Go a few rounds with Cap in the ring. At the very least, you’ll get a good workout.”

“Fine.” Daredevil’s answering grin was fierce. “Book an appointment for Nelson and Murdock to talk to someone in your legal department at 10:00 tomorrow morning, and come crash the meeting.”

***

For once, Tony did as he was told and invited himself to the legal department the next day, latching onto Murdock and dragging him away as he kept up a stream of technobabble about assistive technology.

“Was any of what he was just saying for real?” Nelson asked Pepper as she ushered him away in turn. “Because it sounds great. You should see some of what Matt’s using these days.”

“I’ll make a note to follow up on it,” she promised as they disappeared down a different corridor.

Murdock kept his head half-cocked in their direction until they were gone, then turned a bland smile on Tony. “You said something about a workout?”

***

Satisfied as Murdock might have been with the exercise, the rounds of sparring were a complete bust on the pilot front. Oh, he was _good_ , but at no point did he slip into the odd synergy that signalled compatibility. Not with Steve, not with Natasha, not with Clint.

“Maybe we should have brought more people?” Tony wondered aloud as the others towelled off.

“Pretty sure we could have paraded the whole of SHIELD through here and not found anyone to match him,” Steve said, clapping him on the shoulder as he walked past. “But it was a good try.”

Murdock was wearing that bland little smile again as he slipped his glasses back on and straightened the lines of his suit. “If we’re done here, I have an actual job to get back to?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony grumbled as he tapped the elevator button. “We’ll go fetch your partner, and you can go defend the downtrodden or something.”

Nelson looked Murdock up and down as they walked into the room where he was chatting with Pepper over coffee, sighing in something like relief when Murdock grinned at him, smug and undamaged. “So if you’re finished mixing it up with the Avengers, can we get back to our actual jobs now?”

Tony’s attention was on the coffee machine instead of his guests, but his head snapped up at Steve’s soft intake of breath. “What?”

“Nothing,” Steve denied hastily, then seemed to reconsider. “But take a look at them for a sec, and tell me if you see what I see.”

Tony obligingly turned around, leaning on the counter as he considered Murdock and Nelson. They didn’t seem to be doing anything out of the ordinary, just leaning into each others’ personal space as usual.

“Holy shit,” he breathed a second later as Nelson got to his feet. No one had ever really paid attention to Murdock’s other half, since he was so very obviously not part of the Daredevil thing. Maybe that was why no one had ever spotted the easy way they moved together, in tune in a way Tony had never seen without technological assistance.

He was across the room before Steve could stop him, slinging a casual arm around Nelson’s shoulders. “So, Nelson. Tell me. What are your thoughts on saving the world?”

“Um. What?” Nelson said.

“ _Absolutely not_ ,” said Daredevil.

***

“Okay, let me get this straight.” Nelson took a deep breath, raking his hands through his hair again. “You want my best friend to climb into a giant robot so he can slug it out with giant sea monsters?”

“Yes!” Tony snapped his fingers and pointed, phone to his ear as he talked Jaeger specs with Bruce. “He’d be great at it!”

“Well, yeah, Matt’s awesome.” Nelson shrugged matter-of-factly. “But, completely ignoring the danger of _that_ suggestion for the moment, you want me to go with him? _Me?_ ”

Murdock was practically growling beside him. “Not going to happen.”

Nelson rolled his eyes and flapped a hand at him. “I _can_ actually speak for myself, you know.”

“I know you can.” Murdock caught his hand effortlessly, keeping a loose grip on his wrist as he slid a half-step ahead of him, tucking Nelson protectively behind him with a gentle bump of his shoulder. “But in this case, you don’t have to.”

“Bruce, you’ve _got_ to see these two. We’re going to have to invent a whole new scale of compatibility for them,” Tony said into his phone.

“Look, I don’t think you understand,” Nelson said. “I? Am not a fighter. I’d be useless out there!”

Tony made a frustrated noise. “You don’t _need_ to be a fighter! That’s what _he’s_ for! Just follow his lead!”

“Tony,” Bruce’s voice said from the phone in Tony’s hand. “Stop helping, okay?”

***

Neither one of them would commit to anything, but they promised to think about it.

Two weeks later, an attack destroyed the greater part of Tokyo before SHIELD managed to drop a Jaeger into the rubble.

Murdock called Steve that night and asked how soon someone could come and get them.

***

When they arrived at the Malibu facility, Murdock was tense and unhappy, and Nelson was obviously terrified. They cooperated with the battery of intake tests with good grace, but the first time either of them cracked a smile was when one of the doctors took Nelson to task for his eating habits.

“No more of those godawful cheese things?” Murdock said as the doctor sailed out of the room. “Maybe there’ll be some upsides to this after all.”

“And a fitness regimen,” Nelson moaned, waving the piece of paper the doctor had slapped into his hands. “Remind me why I talked you into this, again?”

Murdock grinned, shaky but true. “I’m not sure, but it’s seeming like a better idea all the time.”

***

“So, your Jaeger. What are you going to call her?” Clint asked as he set his tray down beside Foggy and Matt in the mess.

Foggy opened his mouth to answer, but Murdock cut him off. “No.”

“But it’s _perfect!_ ”

“Foggy, _no_.”

“Come _on_ , Matt!” Foggy poked him lightly in the shoulder. “Can _you_ think of anything better? No, you cannot. Because it’s perfect!”

“It’s ridiculous!” Matt protested, but he couldn’t entirely hide a smile.

“And it is…?” Clint drawled.

“Devil’s Advocate,” they replied in unison.

Clint laughed until he choked.

***

“Do you think they can actually do this?” Natasha asked quietly as Bruce ran Matt and Foggy through another simulation. “They test well, but that’s not a guarantee of how they’ll hold up in a real fight.”

Steve nodded without hesitation. “They’re not soldiers, but they’ll do just fine. Matt’s tough as hell, and Foggy’s scrappier than he realizes. And they’ll fight to keep each other safe, if nothing else.”

The console beeped cheerfully as the computer added another point to their kill tally.

***

“Foggy,” Matt’s voice echoed through the open hangar as the Malibu crew clustered around any screen they could find to watch Devil’s Advocate walk out to meet her first kaiju. “Please tell me that that is _actually_ the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen.”

“Ugh, _yes_. Easily. Oh my God. Hurry up and punch it in the face so we can go look at - I don’t know - some sort of pretty scenery on our way back.”

“Gladly,” Matt said, as the Jaeger shifted its weight, one arm drawing back for a blow.

Foggy whooped as they charged forwards. “Nelson and Murdock for the defense, you jacked-up giant lizard!”

The sound of cheering almost drowned out Matt’s laughter as they sent the kaiju tumbling back into the water.

**Author's Note:**

> This is _not_ the Daredevil/Pacific Rim fusion that I meant to write. Thanks to A Certain Anon for telling me I ought to write it anyway.  <3
> 
> Also! Full disclosure: The name "Devil's Advocate" is not of my invention! It was suggested by some other (genius!) anon on the meme, and I couldn't _not_ use it. :)


End file.
